During the early nineteenth century new conceptions of human
nature and history combined to change American identity as our
nation expanded first into the Mississippi River Valley and then
into the vast Western wilderness.

Originally, the Europeans who voyaged to the New
World brought with them visions of their new lives that had been
informed by the cultural history of their home countries.
They imagined that this vast wilderness contained opportunities
to recreate the Golden Age. In New England, the Puritan
colonists believed that by creating a righteous 'city on a hill' in the
wilds of the
Northern woods, they could heal moral corruption in the Old
World. Despite the power with which these myths gripped
the first generation of colonists, their actual
experiences with the land, the
elements, and the Indians began to transform their understanding
of the quest.

During
the 18th century city folk like Ben Franklin urged trades people to
re-invent themselves as citizens prepared to compete in a market
economy. But farmers still dominated America's growing population, and
the sons and daughters of the original colonists needed new land of
their own to clear and cultivate. The vast territories beyond the
Appalachians beckoned. They had been explored by trappers, hunters, and
scouts, but the wilderness was peopled by hostile tribes in alliance
with French and Spanish. After the American Revolution, the barriers to
expansion began to crumble; led by great hunter/scouts like Daniel
Boone, the trickle of settlers moving West soon became a flood.

Thomas Jefferson believed that the opening of abundant territories
beyond the Appalachians, in Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio, would
secure the ongoing viability of the republic. Yeoman farmers
working small plots of land would learn self-reliance, gain
independence, and live simple lives that exemplified virtue. Yet,
Jefferson was also the president who negotiated the Louisiana
Purchase and brought its vast expanse into the Union. From that
moment on, Americans began to justify more aggressive actions to
seize land and remove the Indians and Mexicans living there.

This vast Westward migration occurred at a unique moment in
the history of ideas. Philosophers in Europe had begun to question the
mechanistic worldview of the
Enlightenment philosophes and had begun to explore a new
relationship between man and nature. They believed that nature
was a living, breathing aspect of God's spirit. Reason could not
grasp the vast plan of life unfolding in history, but great
poets and artists could glimpse our human destiny through great
works of the imagination.

Artists and poets in America looked at their own vast
landscapes with the same imagination. They recognized the
fingerprint of God and a direct clue to his intentions. Inspired
by this powerful myth American heroes would re-shape the continent
itself and enable the nation to assume its unique destiny in human history.
John O'Sullivan declared in 1839, amid the frenzied propaganda
leading to the Mexican War, that it was our nation's
"manifest destiny" to gain sovereignty over all North
America. He declared,

The expansive future is our arena, and
for our history. We are entering on its untrodden space,
with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects
in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by
the past. We are the nation of human progress, and who
will, what can, set limits to our onward march?
Providence is with us, and no earthly power can. (Mt.
Holyoke)

Writers promoted this new nationalist mission in sermons, poems,
and novels, but printing presses also churned out editorials,
pulp fiction, and harrowing tales full of breathless adventure
on the frontier. Artists explored the same nationalist themes
not only in awe
inspiring landscape paintings and heroic pioneer portraits but
also in illustrations for dime novels and eventually in that new
medium, photography.

The historian Henry Jackson Turner argued that in the process
of exploring, settling and taming the West, a unique American
character was forged. In Virgin Land: The American West as
Symbol and Myth, Henry Nash Smith explores the impact of the
West on the consciousness of Americans. He studies the ways that
Americans transformed stories about the hunters, trappers,
pioneers, and soldiers who explored and settled the West into
powerful national myths which justified conquest and
expansion.

Your task is to explore these myths and compare them with
reality.

Write an essay in which you explore the American myths
described in one of the following topics. Compare the
myth with reality. Explain how the myth helped justify American
expansion. Use at least three sources.

Then create a PowerPoint in which you share your discoveries
with the class.

Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950)
University of Virginia “Virgin Land Hypertext Project”: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/hns_home.html
Robert Hughes, American Visions (1996), “Wilderness and the West”
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (1967) “The American Wilderness”
William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann, The West of the
Imagination(1986)

William H. Goetzmann and William N. Goetzmann,
The West of the
Imagination (1986), Chapter 2, "George Catlin: Saving the
Memory of a Vanishing Race"; Chapter 3, "The
Vogue for Galleries and Compendia: Stanley, Kane and
Eastman"; Chapter 4, "European Science and the
Noble Savage", pp. 15-57

Calamity Jane –Having
lived much of her life on the trail, Jane quickly became known as a
skilled marksman and strong rider. After joining the army under General
George Custer, Jane became a scout. A few years later she met Wild Bill
Hickok, who she reportedly got along with quite well.

before 1851:Valley lived in by Yosemite portion of Miwok tribe, who call it Ahwahnee1851:"Discovery" of Valley by non-native Americans, a cavalry troop led by MajorJames Savage, pursuing a party of Yosemites -- they rename the valley Yo-Semite1852:"Discovery" of the Big Trees of Calaveras by A. T. Dowd,a hunter employed by the Union Water Company1855:J. M. Hutchings, collecting material for aCalifornia Magazinearticle,leads first party of sight-seers into Valley1856:First house built in Valley, a hotel for tourists1864:To preserve the Valley and "Big Trees," Congress gives California48.6 square miles for a state park1890:Yosemite National Park established

1850:California imposes Foreign Miner's License Tax1852:11,794 Chinese live in California (only 7 are women)1854:California Supreme Court upholds ban against testimony from Chinese witnesses1860s:Over 30,000 Chinese enter the U.S; nearly all are men who work as laborers1871:Anti-Chinese riots in Los Angeles, part of larger pattern of violence1882:Exclusion Act prohibits Chinese laborers from entering U.S.